1 Basic structure of GE website
GE website consists of many independent websites, which is one of its structural characteristics. The main site has many columns, which are currently organized according to the "leading columns area", "online shopping area", "offline shopping area", "advertising area ", "Service Area", "Business News Area", "Technology News Area", "Stock Market Quotes Area ", "Highlights Zone", "Sports News Zone", and several information retrieval entry windows.
The GE leading column areas and contents are as follows:
1)GE Home Page
2)GE Businesses
(1)Aero Engine Strikers (2)Electrical Equipment (3)Aviation Services
(4)Funding Services (5)Commercial Facilities Investments (6)Commercial Credit
(7)Employees Reinsurance Company (8)GE Stock (9) Financial Insurance
(10) Global Consumer Funding (11) Global Information Hub Services (12) Industrial Systems
(13) Lighting (14) Healthcare Systems (15) Mortgage Insurance Companies
(16) NBC (National Broadcasting Company) (17) Plastics Industry (18) Energy Systems
3) Small Business Service Solutions
(1) Small Business Solutions (2) Acquiring Business (3) Purchasing/Leasing Transportation
(4) Purchasing/Leasing Equipment (5) Purchasing New IT Equipment (6) Company Credit
(7) Employee Benefits (8) Expansion/Additional Equipment (9) Reducing Transportation Expenditures
(10) Refinancing Loans (11) Short Term Liquidity
4) Industrial Solutions
(1) Vehicles (2) Architectural & Engineering Structures (3) Telecommunication
(4) Transportation (5) Equipment & Gear
5) Household Solutions
(1) Lighting (2) Domestic Electrics (3) Household Electricity Safety (4) Adhesives & Sealants
6) Personal Financial Counseling
(1)Annuity Income (2)Auto Insurance (3)Bank Savings and Loans
(4)GE Credit (5)Direct Stock Investments (6)GE Auto Warranty Program
(7)GE Payment Management (8)GE Payments Plus Interest (9)Home Mortgages
(10)Life Insurance (11)Long Term Health Insurance ( 12)Mutual Funds
7)Corporate Information
(1)Information Room (2)Annual Report (3)Investors
(4)GE in the Community (5)Talent Recruitment (6)Contact Us
8)Global Connections
GE also has a number of Web sites organized by leading service lines
3. Positioning of GE Web Sites
Any Web site, which has the following features, will have the following characteristics.
Any website, its competitiveness can be reflected in three levels, one is the information layer, the second is the channel layer, and the third is the service layer. Most of the domestic electronic websites are still competing on the information level, not because they don't want to build stable customer channels and provide substantial services, but because most of them don't have the foundation of industrial practice, and it is difficult for them to build a novel online business model from the actual consumers or enterprises. Or rather, their lack of deep understanding of the product, the customer, and the actual business model is the main reason for the lack of vitality of these sites.
GE's Web site is top-notch in terms of information dissemination, channel construction, and service model. First of all, the site is not simply positioned in the "B2B", "B2C", "B2G" and other external forms, but in the customer base. Therefore, the site is organized by "Individuals", "Families", "Small Businesses", "Companies", "Industrial Solutions", "GE Business" and "Global Services".
Based on this concept, the GE website "captures" customers with information and expands channels with services. In terms of the form of operation, it consists of "B2C", "B2B", "B2G" and "ASP" models. The model of "B2C", "B2B", "B2G" and "ASP". For example:
B2C - "lighting", "home appliances", "bonding and sealants", "Appliance Security", "Personal Finance", "GE Credit Card", "House Rental", "Credit", etc.
B2B - "General Network Services", "Small Business Services" "Purchase/Lease of Equipment", "Acquisition of New IT Equipment", "Reduction of Vehicle Expense Expenses", "Development of Businesses ", "Employee Benefits", "Automation", "Communications", "Transportation ", "GE Investments", "Commercial Equipment", etc.
ASP - "Global Information Exchange Services," "Corporate Procurement Solutions," "GE Web Solutions," "EDI Solutions," etc.
Secondly, it is also hard to say which one GE website belongs to in terms of the so-called portal form. As a corporate website, in terms of product marketing, it has done a very professional and very exclusive, such as its household appliances and electric light source product column plate, in marketing creativity and virtual effect on the display of all the B2C website of the model.
4. To affection for the theme of marketing
Life is better has been the theme of General Electric's network marketing. General Electric's earliest home page for all kinds of products is the theme of human affection and happiness, attracting customers' interest in the site, and utilizing human affection to shorten the distance between the company and its customers. The website suggests to the customers on the Internet: this website aims to cultivate the love and affection with the customers, so you will still have any doubts about our products and enterprises in terms of sense of security and trust? "Affinity marketing" to the General Electric website has brought a large number of online customers, but also brought great benefits. General Electric Company of the United States after several revisions and the overall structure of the adjustment, the establishment of online sales, online design, online consulting and services and other columns. Such as the 2002 version of the General Electric Company's home page, the home page links to the "GE Business", "Small Business Services Program", "Industrial Solutions, "Home Solutions", "Personal Financial Counseling", "Company Information" and "Global Connections "****. With 7 columns, which are 7 sub-sites categorized by business, the overall vertical and horizontal division of the homepage is precise, clear, and standardized, and a variety of categorized indexes have been established to make it easy for customers to access each link area. From the web page of the revamp also reflects the general company's network marketing strategy changes, from the initial attract more customers to better serve the customer transformation, the theme of the network structure from the "affinity marketing" to "interactive marketing".
5. General Electric's precision marketing system
"Precision marketing system" is the primary goal of the customer, find the right customers, and then use a variety of means to develop relationships with customers. Secondly, the system is based on maintaining the relationship with the customer to understand the household appliances that the customer is currently using, the customer's level of satisfaction, and the willingness to repurchase the appliance. With this the company can intervene and use various means to enhance the customer's willingness to purchase appliances. As early as 1981, GE began to "general appliances to consumers personalized, consumers to general appliances personalized" attempt. The company was the first in the United States to publicize the 800 digital telephone number, seeking customer feedback on the company and its products. The result was that thousands of customers used the toll-free number to voice their complaints and ask questions. General Electric immediately realized that this was a good way for customers to release their suppressed needs, and immediately set up five telephone answering centers to provide callers with general knowledge about the use and maintenance of electrical appliances, diagnose problems they encountered, provide technical assistance, carry out regional shopping, manage service contracts, and set up retailer forums, not only to establish a relationship with the major customers, but at the same time 20% of sales were made through these channels. 20% of sales are made through these channels.
GE was the first to build a global e-mail network in the early 1990s, and as the Internet became more widespread, the company took advantage of the new platform's more colorful, fast, and convenient features to strengthen the company's interactions with its customers and enhance its global marketing capabilities. Response centers have evolved from "technical support bases" or feedback tools into important customer management organizations.
1) The company's online Answer Center home page GE uses these pages to facilitate conversations with customers on an individual level, to stimulate collaboration, to socialize, and to serve customers.
2) GE's online response home page for household products, which has links to each appliance, details of each size and model, photographs, and instructions throughout the page. For example, "cooker" products in the "Outdoor Cooking Center" 48, 36, 27 'specifications of the single-wheeled hand-push stainless steel folding rack built-in barbecue grill, the user can download its specifications, manuals and a complete set of Users can download specifications, manuals and a full set of insurance documents, as well as installation instructions; users can also call toll-free at 800 for advice or receive a fax. In addition, there are a series of "Extended Service Programs", all GE products have this kind of value-added services, absolutely reflects the "informal value" of Welch.
General Electric's Internet marketing system understands the special characteristics of the goods or services that the customer wants, and introduces the goods or services. Once a person becomes a customer of the company, the system immediately establishes an exchange of information with them and provides real-time support. At the same time, the site response center system can also be for the functional design of the company's products, product sales and marketing in various regions to collect first-hand information for the company to guide the production, create knowledge, product transformation to provide the basis.
6. 3 levels of customer relations
General Electric Company in the United States in the network marketing system, the establishment of the three levels of customer relations, three levels of customer contact work to strengthen the customer contact, enhance the company's value to customers.
①Problem solving level. At this level, the company's online representative must diagnose the problem, propose a solution, or provide the information that the customer needs. For example, if a customer has a problem with a certain model of oven, but can't pinpoint the source of the problem, a representative will need to help the customer determine where the repairs need to be made or to see if it would be more cost-effective to buy a newer oven. For this purpose, the company has a "Customer Records Database" and a "Problem Solving Database", which provides access to company-wide expertise to help representatives diagnose problems and solve most of them (the success rate is generally greater than 75%). Maintenance staff can send product specialists to respond to problems that cannot be solved immediately, and after the customer's problem is solved, the solution is added to the database as a reference for similar cases in the future.
②Marketing operations. In order to establish a long-term customer relationship, the reps strengthen their focus on the customer by inquiring about the customer's appliance ownership and intention to repurchase the appliance, and at the same time forward the information to the marketing department so that they can utilize the opportunity to follow up with the customer and carry out direct marketing activities.
③R&D information feedback operations. Representatives will support the views of the enterprise network through the relevant departments to go, in order to give full play to the role of information leverage. General Electric has the so-called "important executable consumer idea system", whose function is to categorize the customer's problem or praise, and then use a special model for processing. In this way, the company can address problems immediately or improve them in future designs to make the product more complete. The network also reorganizes these issues so that all relevant personnel can receive the information and learn from it. The company also holds frequent marketing and product design roundtables, where representatives put themselves in the shoes of the user and review all complaints and feedback by product, and designers develop improvement plans accordingly.
From the above General Electric Company in the United States in the network marketing system to establish the three levels of customer relations, General Electric not only to answer the center system is built to quickly solve the problem of the channel, but also to turn it into a source of information for the product design. It requires good designers to visit the answering center every step of the way, and must listen to the answering center several times a year, so that the answering representatives from the idea to product prototypes to make suggestions, make full use of the knowledge in the database and the representatives of the knowledge in their minds for its product improvement services, to provide customers with "informal value".
7. GE's Rewards to Customers
Based on this long-term effort, GE has been extremely rewarded: it now has a huge customer database of 35 million names, representing almost one-third of all U.S. households. All the information is provided by the above-mentioned answering centers, i.e., customer connection points, including call centers, sales centers, regional maintenance personnel, technicians, traders and market researchers. These people or departments not only provide information for the database, but also have access to various Web sites to extract information and obtain all kinds of technical support to support marketing programs, development of new products and other similar activities. since the opening of GE's www site, the database has been expanded to all parts of the world, the online contact with all kinds of "number of visits statistics", "online contact", "online contact", "online contact", "online contact", "online contact", "online contact", "online contact", "online contact", "online contact" and "online contact". ", "online feedback", "online surveys", "retailers and wholesalers information contact", "" GE Customer Resources***", which doubles the amount of customer information worldwide.
By providing customers with a convenient channel to contact the company and the company's timely feedback of information, General Electric can not only strengthen the relationship with customers, but also with the network marketing center of contact, can be a large extent to improve customer attention to the product range of General Electric and the degree of awareness. At the same time the knowledge generated through mutual interaction with customers can provide valuable inputs to sales, market development and new product development programs.
In this way, the company, through the process of constantly learning how to dynamically manage and recognize its customers, gains a tremendous increase in customer value and loyalty; and the company concentrates its efforts on making improvements to each of its leading products where customers are more satisfied, and continually identifies new sales opportunities. These are its clear mission of affinity marketing: the purpose of network marketing is to "enable customers to achieve a high level of satisfaction, gradually increase the company's annual revenue, expand market share, strengthen the long-term loyalty to the company's brand, and reduce the cost of warranty".
8. General Comments
First, from the GE, the development of the Internet, so that the enterprise and the customer, the enterprise and the staff, the staff and the staff and all the relationships between them to become transparent, knowledge is the power of the past, because all people will be able to easily and simultaneously access to a large amount of information, the enterprise's traditional way of doing business will inevitably be impacted, including the disintegration of the intermediary, the pooling of competition, Virtual business communities, full penetration of customers, dynamic pricing, targeted products, collaborative markets, partner services, and other changes in the business model that have been initially apparent.
Secondly, by conveying the information of positioning to consumers, so that the differences clearly highlighted in front of consumers, thus attracting the attention of consumers to your brand, and make their associations. If the positioning and consumer needs coincide, then your brand can stay in the hearts of consumers. For general merchandise, the difference always exists, only the size of the strong and weak. And the pursuit of differentiated marketing "difference" is the product of "incomplete substitutability", that is, in terms of product features, quality, service, marketing, etc., the enterprise for the customer is part of the rivals can not be replaced.
Third, GE is still the best company in the world, and it is promoting the e-commerce revolution with the greatest enthusiasm, which not only determines the future destiny of this century-old giant, but also will have a global and far-reaching impact.